GOP congressman: 'Culmination of mistrust,' not Trump, to blame for Capitol riot

Republican Congressman David Rouser represents North Carolina's seventh District

Congressman good to see you today

Good to see you David

Uh starting with the events of Onley six days ago

My gosh so much has happened but walk us through

where you were and what happened last Wednesday

Well it was the darkest day of my life that's

for sure

No one ever anticipated an assault on the capital

Uh no one that I know anyway

And I was on the floor for the first hour

or so of debate the joint session

And then when we went into the debate on on

the electoral slate from Arizona and after about 30 or

40 minutes of that debate I decided uh I had

some things I could get done back at the office

In fact was gonna do a news interview here in

the office

And about the time I got back here I could

tell that something wasn't right

I could tell by the way some of my colleagues

and the sergeant in Arms and and other other staff

members were acting when I was viewing the house floor

um on the T V three c span and it

was about probably 45 minutes later uh that the Capitol

police came by and they escorted me and other members

that were in their respective offices to an undisclosed secure

location as they were doing that

Was there ever a point in time that you thought

Oh my I'm not so sure about my safety

No there was never really any any uh key point

in time where I thought that of course you don't

know what's transpiring Exactly

You don't know who is uh coming into the capital

Uh you don't know how violent things are

You have a suspicion that things aren't right and could

be very violent but you don't really know

There there was just a lot of unknown but at

no point that I feel in in any kind of

immediate danger

So a few hours later the house is called back

into session

You voted to object

Was there every point in time you felt compelled to

change your decision after the events of that day You

know I was an object tour thio each of the

states and question because the state legislatures the laws that

were put in place and changes that have been put

in place were outside the scope of the legislature in

those respective states

Uh in other words it was governors

It was Secretary of State's

It was judges etcetera that had made changes to the

election laws

And that's contrary to what is written in the U

S

Constitution

So that was the fundamental point of the argument

And after after the horrible episode and after three assault

on the capital I thought to myself had we not

had the assault would I be changing my vote And

the answer was no

And from a principal standpoint from a constitutional standpoint uh

I felt it was appropriate to go ahead and vote

my convictions uh that in the state of Arizona there

was uh unconstitutional changes that were made uh to the

election laws leading up to the Election day

And eso there felt very comfortable casting that vote

I will note that the other objections uh we're not

debated on Lee Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania was brought up specifically

because we have a letter from Statehouse and state Senate

members of Pennsylvania asking the Congress not to certify the

slate of electors from Pennsylvania and of course the broader

point here to Waas

We wanted a 10 day audit of all of these

states so that the American people could at least have

some confidence uh that the election was legitimate

You've got 40% of the American people rightly or wrongly

who believe the election was rigged on

That's according to a routers pope

And I think those of us that have significant constituencies

that feel that way and I know I certainly do

in the Senate Congressional District and I have concerns about

the integrity of the election in those states is well

from a personal private citizens standpoint

I felt like it was incumbent upon us to move

forward and of course to show the world that you

could do whatever you want to to the U

S

Capitol

But business here is going to continue for the people

Congressman do you believe President Trump should be held to

a standard of any accountability for what happened last Wednesday

I believe that when you have an event of that

magnitude I don't think there's any one thing that said

I don't think there's anyone action that's taken that necessarily

spurs that after I've reflected on all this

You don't have that type of mayhem

You don't have that type of assault on the capital

Uh if you've not had a huge brewing atmosphere over

the years this is a culmination of of a lot

of mistrust I think

And of course all it takes is a very tiny

percentage of the public from all 50 states to come

here to D

C

And to create a little mayhem when in fact 99.8%

of the rest of the country are law abiding upstanding

citizens that were never even think of such eso

I don't think there was one word

I don't think there was one speech that incited this

I think has been building for a long time

In other words and I think the best of judgment

was not always used

I was concerned about a rally on the mall that

day in particular

In fact I was so concerned about a rally on

the mall that I advised my staff not to come

into the office because I didn't know what would transpire

And so I think that was bad judgment

I think the political rhetoric that we use and of

course heated political rhetoric

David as you very well know goes way back to

the founding

Uh that is not new

It's quite customary toe Have heated political rhetoric uh rhetoric

on the campaign trail on and then with respect to

an election S o I um I'm I don't think

anybody can pinpoint exact blame on any one person including

the president of the United States

I wish his tone had been better

Uh I wish he had said You know what Uh

we believe that there's fraud

We've not been able to confirm massive amounts of fraud

that would overturn the election

At that point

At this point even though I believe that and I

wish he would have said whatever transpires today we should

accept the outcome

And we should move forward as a country

So I wanna make sure I understood what you just

said

You believe that there waas significant fraud Even though nothing

has been proven none of the court challenges the recounts

over and over in states like Pennsylvania and Michigan and

Georgia

You still hold firm to believe there were problems

Well in regards to my statement their second ago with

you

I was talking from the perspective of the president

Hey definitely believes there was significant massive fraud

From my standpoint

Yes I believe there was a significant amount of fraud

because you've had all you had all these major changes

to election laws that were not made by state legislators

They were made by uh independent parties or individuals in

those respective states who held in office

But that on its face eyes unconstitutional in my view

And that that was basically the argument that was being

made as also the argument that was being made by

those who are members of this of the state Senate

in the statehouse in Pennsylvania

Who sent us a letter asking us not Thio certify

those results

Thank you

And so So yes I do believe there was a

significant amount of fraud

Do I know that there was enough for auto overturning

election No I don't know that

No one knows that at this point But that was

the whole point of having the 10 day audit uh

to provide some confidence for the American people

The 40% out there that believe the election was rigged

That was the whole purpose of proposing the audit Uh

the temporary stay so to speak

So that you could have that 10 day audit so

that there would be confidence in this election

Yeah

You know Congressman just a couple more things we've We've

got new members of Congress including Madison Cawthorne from North

Carolina who has ruffled a few feathers already back in

December saying You know it is okay

And I'm quoting now from the New York Times article

it is okay to call your congressman and lightly threatened

them

Have you spoken with Congressman Cawthorne recently I have not

spoken with him recently but Madison is uh is a

good young man 25 years old uh the youngest member

elected to Congress

And I think it's easy for folks to get called

up in uh heated political rhetoric

I don't think that Madison intended anything malicious with that

but I do think moving forward

I think we all need to be cognizant of what

we say and how we say it s o that

we don't stir

Uh you know passions beyond beyond the pale

You know you're one of the members I think of

you

I think of Congressman George holding a couple of other

folks here who over the years have seemed to taken

the approach

I want to take an even keel versus raising my

voice yelling at someone uh making veiled threats whatever they

may be Uh where does that come from Within you

Well we all are different personalities

And you know if you're gonna be an effective legislator

though you don't need to be known as uh you

know the one who stirs the pot all the time

Uh there is a time in place uh for motivational

speech

Let's call it that Uh but there's there's a time

in place to for even handedness for measured approach

And quite honestly if you're going to govern the way

our system is you have to compromise with other with

others uh to get anything done

And uh that's an important an important aspect of this

job

If you're gonna be a nif effective legislator for the

country for for the state bond for your district Congressman

it looks like there's going to be a vote on

article of impeachment tonight

How do you plan to vote I will vote against

it

Uh You know over the course of my life I've

never found that it was prudent uh to make a

decision to taken action out of anger uh to cast

a vote out of anger

Uh this is a knee jerk political action

Political action spearheaded by Speaker Pelosi and and the others

on the Democrat side

Uh largely motivated because they hate this guy

They hate the president of the United States

More than any other human being on Earth it seems

and they have since day one and s o

I think they're gonna use this as an opportunity

Thio

Just stab at him one more time on

I think that's unfortunate

It does nothing to heal the country

It only exacerbates the wounds

And I think it's ah bad move on the leadership

here in the house

If you had the chance to speak with the President

today what would you say to him I think he

needs to come out and I would tell him this

Come out and congratulate President elect Biden on his victory

Uh tell the country that we need to move forward

that this is the constitutional process

Theological votes were cast back in December

They were counted in Congress

Just last week everything was done according to the Constitution

on by the by the book Uh in terms of

the counting of the electoral votes uh this past Wednesday

and that we need to move forward as a country

Congressman David Rouser of North Carolina seventh District including much

of our viewing area

We appreciate your time this afternoon and we're hoping to

hear from or of your colleagues in the coming days

So call on us any time we appreciate it

Good to be with you David

Thank you sir

Thank you

Good to hear your voice

It's good to see you sir

And uh again seriously calling us anytime we'll do

Thank you David

All right sir